Caprica Cancelled

So, Caprica is cancelled. The quasi-mystical-virtual-reality-worrying-and-beards follow-up to Galactica is being replaced with something a bit more gutsy. Caprica was only really liked by people who spent their evenings ironing Team Jacob pillowcases while genuinely meaning to get beyond Chapter 1 of their copy Nietszche for Dummies. Blood and Chrome sounds a bit more.. you know... blood and chrome-y.


According to EW, Blood and Chrome was commissioned at a meeting at Comic-Con between an exec from SyFy and Caprica guru David Eick (no relation to the lizard guy). The conversation may have gone a bit like this:

EICK: "So, anyway, things are going great on Caprica..."


EXEC: "Uh-huh."


EICK: "Yeah, we've got a whole spiritual arc plotted out, a real journey of the mind..."


EXEC: "Right."


EICK: "Honestly, we are staring into the Frakking Abyss."


EXEC: "Sure you are."


EICK: "Mind you, the writing room has this idea for a show all about exploding spaceships and Cylons."


EXEC: "uh-hu... What?"


EICK: "Oh yeah, crazy isn't it? It's all zoom! zoom! pew! pew! pew! robots go smashy-smashy! kablooey! and I keep saying to them, guys, if you can really nail the true nature of the virutal soul by year three, then maybe, just maybe we'll do it as a web series."


There is a pause.


EICK: "Seriously, Caprica is a metaphysical allegory! It's Obama!"


EXEC: (mournful, quiet) "pew... pew... pew..."

Poirot for AOL

A brief look at the Poirot TV series that I've done for the nice people at AOL.

DoomWatch Watch: Into the Dark and The Iron Doctor

These two episodes both spring from a similar premise - what happens when computers become involved in keeping someone alive?

In Into The Dark, Patrick Troughton's head explains that his pet computer alows him to live forever, a thinking brain in a rotting body and that's fine, thank you. Only Quist turns up and has a couple of chats, and Patrick Troughton decides he'd like to die after all (well, wouldn't you rather than sit in a room with Quist - the Gordon Brown of Science?).

There's a bit more to it, but it's mostly just an excuse for Quist and Troughton to run through a few quick acting exercises and then The End. Several other issues here get discarded along the way - toxic cargo on wartime shipwrecks, running a company from beyong the grave, but mostly it's just Troughton looking a bit ill and Quist doing thoughtful cardigan acting.

Meanwhile, The Iron Doctor tells us all about a hospital ward where the patients are being kept alive by a radical computer. Only - whoops - they accidentally bought in a military computer, and it's killing off the patients and waging war against hospital staff it doesn't like.

The whole episode is about tensions in the NHS, lining up Caring Doctor and Cuddly Matron against Sinister Administrator and his Battle Computer. Quist and Fay Chantry bumble around a bit, stumble on the truth after a few people have died, and then it's up to Grumpy Computer Colin to save the day with his screwdriver.

The episode is both duller and more exciting than you think it's going to be. It starts out as being about medical ethics (can we trust a computer to prolong life?) and then switches to red tape conspiracy before turning out to be "The hospital's run by a Dalek!".

There's a few little notes about Patient Confidentiality (all the old people on the ward are under constant CCTV) and, in an odd point, clearly the view out of the Sinister Administrator's window must be fascinating because every character spends most of their time on the set crossing over and peering through the slats of his Ventian Blind. I wonder what they're seeing - is it a geriatric being given a bed bath?

DoomWatch Watch: The Inquest

Best Doomwatch ever. Forget your Plastic Eaters and your Rats, this one is just great.

Oh, it's dull and cheap, but that's its charm. For a start, it's Computer Colin's episode. In every single other episode he's just mumbled "Eckee thump, I'll run it through t'computer, but ee, I've got other work ta do, ya know," but finally they give him something to do, and he absolutely shines.

With every other member of the team on holiday or off filming, Quist summons Colin to the office. "It's a studio-based courtroom drama. I can't be bothered. Off you trot, old chap" and, with a face like a lovesick haddock, off Colin slouches to go and attend an inquest into a girl who died of rabies.

Since Colin is a man of considerable girth, this features quite the stockiest guest cast of any Doomwatch episode - the world's fattest coroner, the largest ever Lady Bountiful, and the widest ever man from the ministry. It's like a Slitheen convention!

Size isn't Colin's only asset - turns out he's a great actor, and you immediately wish that DoomWatch was just him and Quist solving science crimes like a grumpy Steed and Mrs Peel.

Setting almost the entire action in a country hotel allows the episode to really unwrap a complicated scientific mystery - what killed the girl? Was it really a rabid dog? Or was it a mutant tse-tse fly escaped from the local maverick scientist's lab?

Mary Lincoln from Sybil Hall - a solid dog-breeding gal decked out in Evans' country casuals range, carefully explains her solid theory that it was a mutated fly carrying a version of rabies. A theory that has the whole village on her side - because Science Is Wrong, and the government just want to kill their dogs, the swine.

It's up to Colin to quietly, patiently knock this down. Without test-tubes or a computer he just stands there and simply, and patiently explains the process of genetic manipulation and you just go "Coooo. I've actualy learned something. Blimey, this guy's great."

Just when you're turning against Mrs Lincoln, it turns out that the rabid dog came from her farm! Gasp! She was the evil one all along, not the Sinister Scientist!

Then, in another shift, it turns out that the dog came from Sinister Scientist's lab after all... so it was him! Only... he didn't know it had rabies. The dog was stolen from his lab by the genial pub landlord's son, and he's been keeping a whole pack of rabid hounds in a shed... and the kid's been bitten himself. So if anyone's evil, it's the kid - only he was simply misguided.

Just when you think this is the most morally complicated Doomwatch yet, up pops Quist wearing what can only be described as his Battle Dungarees. He's worked it out - the rabid dog was actualy procured for the scientist by the genial pub landlord - he's effectively killed one girl, and now his own son is ill. Case closed. The Villagers rush off to get their torches and pitchforks.

Time for Doomwatch to make a quick exit, but not before Quist, with his famous sensitivity, gets to say to the landlord "Well, you'd better hope we got to your son in time. Cheerio."

And then they're off. Whole thing utterly brilliant - neat idea, some solid explanation of science, great characters and a thumping good guest cast. More like this please.

Brighton

I've had a slight cold this week. Which has been useful in that it's meant that I've been able to have a succession of days of mild lunchtime drinking (dunno why, but whenever I've got a cold, my body stops finding alcohol a struggle).

Yesterday I stomped around Brighton with friends, which was marvellous and a bit drunken and involved sitting in a bar working my way through the bespoke cocktail menu before getting on a train home. Why is Brighton so easy to get to but so hard to leave? Is there some kind of magnetic pull, or is it just that the trains are odd?

Anyway, brilliantly, I sat on the train back watching cluthing this:

It is, of course, wrong to assemble the Lego Christmas Toy Shop until December. But oh happy day!

Also on the train I watched the first episode of Fringe Series 2. By the end of Series 1, plucky Olivia Dunham still hadn't cracked a smile, lightened up, or done anything in the way of likeable or warm. She's got the screen presence of a wine cooler.

Without spoilers, series 2 opens with Olivia in hospital, and the regular cast getting on just fine without her. They've even got a new female FBI agent - she's perky, smart and sassy, is clearly fun to be around and likes the central heating on. She probably owns a shitload of cats.

By the end of the episode, it's clear that poor old Deadly Dull Dunham is on probation. When the rest of the cast catch up with her on hospital and deliver lines like "Oh it's great to see you're better" and "We really can't live without you" it's clear they're actually thinking the exact opposite. But will Agent Dunham learn her lesson quickly enough to save the show? Hmmn.

Doom Watch Watch: Human Time Bomb

Another brilliant episode. This one's about 1970s tower blocks. The developer says they're wonderful, DoomWatch aren't convinced, so they send plucky Dr Fay Chantry to investigate. After six weeks living in a tower block, she's utterly crackers.

DoomWatch's initial reaction is "pull yourself together, silly woman", but then, after a few scotches, they look into it and realise that the building itself is driving the residents mad... and Faye will be next. Or, as Dr Quist puts it when dictating his report on the way home: "Why, when birds are caged together it's necessary to cut off their beaks to prevent them from tearing each other apart... Birds... Fay!" before rushing off to stop her beating a handyman to death with a hammer.

It's a drab and distressing story of how what looks like an enormous conspiracy is actually just a sad matter of people being driven very gently crazy by small windows, bad lifts and flimsy cupboards. It's easy enough to laugh at the general datedness of the episode, but the contrast between Fay in her tiny box and Dr Quist swanning around posh London clubs is telling indeed.

DoomWatch Watch: Flight Into Yesterday

Every now and then an episode of DoomWatch comes along which reminds you why this is a great series, and not just a show about chain-smoking men in turtlenecks and the dolly birds they prey on.

Welcome to Flight Into Yesterday, a creepy, nervy story about jetlag as a tool of industrial sabotage.

It's a very simple idea. Quist nearly loses his job after getting off a flight fro New York clearly hammered. He protests his innocence, but the Minister takes his place on the next flight. And sitting in the seat next to him is a suave PR guy who wonders if he can have a word? And perhaps the Minister would like a glass of brandy?

What transpires is that Suave PR Guy has been flying the world using jetlag for brainwashing, plying his victims with booze and food and not letting them sleep with his constant small talk.

We watch as the Minister drinks and chainsmokes his way across timezones, becoming more and more incoherent and fragile while his tormentor becomes more and more smooth. Perhaps another drink, Minister?

It reaches its shocking conclusion when the plane touches down and the Minister drops from a heart attack. "You overdid it that time," says John Ridge smagly, and goes off to deliver the Minister's speech.

This is both plausible and dated - but in a proper way. This is a world that exploits the businessman's cliche of "work hard and play hard", fertile ground that was reworked in an advert from my chidlhood of a businessman flying to New York into the jaws of the corporate sharks waiting for him. "He's on the Red Eye" they gloat. But, thanks to BA, he arrives fresh as a daisy.

Doom Watch Watch: Web Of Fear

This episode opens with the best shot of anything on television ever:


There. The Minister dictating to his secretary. In the nude! In a sauna! Every business meeting should be like this!

An anticlimax is inevitable. Yellow Fever breaks out on an island health farm. At the same time a maverick scientist is enjoying a second honeymoon on the island. And why have the spiders turned blue?

Turns out Maverick Scientist has a reputation for Not Thinking Things Through. He's made a virus that kills off moths. But the spiders ate the moths which triggered off a latent virus in the spiders which could destroy Penzance. Has the man never heard the song "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly?". Well, perhaps he'll die.

By the half hour mark, the Minister is out of the sauna, everyone's turning yellow, and the Maverick Scientist has gone to look for spiders down an old mine. What could possibly go wrong? Wronger?

Yup. The mine collapses! And it's full of blue spiders! And John Ridge is trapped down there with only a feather duster and sheepskin gloves to protect himself! But the good news is there's going to be a bumper crop of apples on the island this year...

Direct-to-DVD

Sarah Connor could get direct-to-DVD finale, said a barman at G-A-Y before asking you to move out of the way as he totally needs that bit of counter to lean on and look moody whilst checking Grindr.

*lets out girly scream of excites*

DoomWatch Watch: By The Pricking Of My Thumbs

Some schoolboys blow up another one. Rather than expel them all, the Headmaster just gets rid of the tallest.

His explanation? The boy's tall for his age.

The tall boy's adopted father happens to be the kind of journalist Ben Goldacre sprinkles on his shreddies, and launches a campaign for the reinstatement of his bomb-making son, arguing that this is all to do with an extra Y chromosome.

Cue Doomwatch. Rather than say "What about the child who got blown up?" they head off to try and stop a tall boy throwing himself under an airplane. Luckily John's slept with the right dollybird who can explain all about illegal genetic testing.


He then goes to the school, finds some boys, and gives them cigarettes and money until they tell him what he wants to know. Some science stuff happens here, but I'm just staring at the screen thinking:
a) This is horrible.
b) Paedophiles had slim-pickings in the 1970s.

We then head to Gatwick, where the tall boy is standing on the runway waiting to be mown down by a plane. He has done this by turning left at the sign which says "coach station" which tells you that while the 70s were tough for pederasts, they were a golden age for drug smuggling.

Doomwatch shout some science at the boy through a loud hailer and he isn't run over by a plane. Latest DoomTotty is called Dr Fay Chantry. She has expressive hair and a frozen face. She's up to something. Dr Quist delivers a speech about how, well, boys will be boys and it's nothing to do with genetics. The End.

I'm fairly sure I missed something here, but I couldn't say what. This episode also features some of the best arched eyebrow acting on television.


Please note: Man on the left - evil eyebrows of a misguided scientist aware of the error of his ways. Man on the right - concerned eyebrows of a moral crusader.

DoomWatch II

Thanks to Johnny for sending me the rest of Doomwatch.

So, where were with 1970s DoomPorn? Well, previously on DoomWatch a lot of people smoked and smacked women around and some people were eaten by rats.

I've skipped over a few episodes - like the joyous one where Welsh men stop having sex, or the one where Jesus explodes. But here we are in Series 2. And an episode called "Invasion".

The team turn up in an idyllic Yorkshire village. On the hill is an old base where the military have been very successfully containing a lethal pathogen... Until DoomWatch turn up and start meddling!

By the end of the episode people are dropping like flies, the army are shooting the pets, and the entire village has been evacuated for ever. Thanks DoomWatch.

Laaaaauuuuraaaaaa!

Agent Cooper wants to bring back Twin Peaks according to Digital Spy:

MacLachlan said that creator David Lynch would most likely not be involved with the new version, as he is busy advocating meditation techniques.

Jessica Fletcher meets Magnum

It had to happen. Lee and I would eventually get round to this. And it's very odd.

First off, it is "fabulous" without being in any way "good". The mystery (spanning an episode of Magnum and one of Murder, She Wrote) is almost incomprehensible. It's something to do with widows, hitmen, diamonds and public relations. The plotting is diabolical - for scheduling reasons, Jessica's only in the second half of the Magnum episode, and Magnum spends most of Murder, She Wrote in single-set prison.

And yet, it's still eye-watering as the New England sleuth descends on Hawaii and the corpses start piling up. It's the inevitable clash of the acting titans that we're here for as Tom Selleck does rueful charm and Angela Lansbury does... nope. Still no idea. It's a unique acting style that doesn't mesh with Tom Selleck at all. It's a weird "i'm the star of the show, dear" display of mugging and business, all delivered to the cheap seats at the back.

It's a wasted opporunity really. The two bicker gently, but not too much. There's precious little gun play, and all the chemistry you get when two inert gases intermingle. But who cares? Lee and I can tell people we've seen the fabled Murder, She Wrote/Magnum crossover, and we'll get looks of awe and wonder.

(As an aside, when I was young my favourite character was Higgins, but you now realise the poor actor appears to be being fed his lines off camera, managing a delivery that is both surprised and stilted, as though he's just reeled in from the pub to be confronted by bright lights and cue cards)

PS: Thanks to the wonders of the internet - here's the trailer. Amaze.

Mopping up

APOLOGY: In previous posts I may have given the impression that Mr Shamwow might, just might, be my new husband following his promise to be twelve times more absorbent than anything else on the market.

Such impressions were, of course, misleading and innaccurate. Especially now I discover that Mr Shamwow is not the moisture-soaked paragon I initially took him for but instead:

1) His real name is Vince
2) He was arrested after beating up a prostitute who tried to bite out his tongue.

Brilliant remix of his other product, the unfortunately named Slap Chop:

Australian telly

Is bad beyond words. A friend used to make commercials out here, but gave up after deciding, "Well, look, I didn't make award-winning BBC trailers so that Crazy John could ring up and scream at me about his advert."

And then I saw the trailer for ShamWow. Gold dust. See it here

Brisbane

I am in Brisbane. It is raining. Really raining. All I can see are office blocks and rain. The guide book tells me I can go cycling along the river, or snorkelling. But I may just hide in my hotel room. And, in other bad news, Lee emails to tell me that, inexplicably, the Sarah Connor Chronicles has been cancelled. First Bonekickers, now this? Is there no justice in the world?

Aliarse

Finally got through season five this week. I've been padding warily around it for a fortnight - do I really want to commit to 20 hours of wig-based spy capers?

The answer was yes. Possibly. Although I'm still a little baffled about what it was about. Maybe that's cos Alias is baffling. Maybe it's cos I watched the last episode after a very long very lovely evening out in one of East London's post-modern gayaterias.

I dunno. But I remember thinking as I staggered to bed at oh-god-oh-clock: I just don't own enough wigs.

Sarah Connor update

The Rural Juror. It's a running gag in 30 Rock, a film with an oddly unpronouncable title. I'm reminded of it every time I hear a cast member mumble "Previously on the Sarah Connor Chronicles". Seriously, who thought up that name?

We're nearly at the end of Series 2, and it's like watching paint dry on a burning building.

It's a show about people on the run - from killer cyborgs, from the future, from themselves, but mostly, they're running away from the show itself.

It has the air of improvised science fiction, lurching from one giddy ta-da to the next, but with no real idea of what it's actually about.

At least Battlestar, for all its grimness, bad hair days, and occasional episodes about blah, always had a plan. It wasn't going to tell you, but that was for your own good.

Sarah Connor keeps its cards close to its chest, but with the infantile glee of a child crying "it's a secret! it's a secret!".

Let's just imagine for a second that you've been watching Season Two in one glut on a long haul flight - and somehow not tried to flush yourself out of the plane. You'll have seen John Connor go back to school, leave school, move house, meet whacky pregnant neighbour (who vanishes for, oooh, 15 weeks), find a blood-soaked wall of cryptic clues in the garage, forget about it, remember, forget, remember, and finally totally forget it.

John also gets a girlfriend, who vanishes, then comes back, then he dumps her, then she's back, then she's gone again, oh noes! she's from the future - and what's that, John Connor? You say you knew all along? And there were all these clues that we missed? I don't think so.

Oh, and hang on, you also knew all along that Derek also had a girlfriend from the future? And didn't at any point think there would be hilarious consequences involving guns and luggage? (By the way, Sarah Connor Chronicles loves guns and luggage - it's like they're sponsored by a dull duty free shop. Next year, I predict we'll see a lot of inflatable pillows)

As both girlfriends from the future are pretty annoying, it's quite useful that one shoots the other and then leaves the show. Sadly, this still leaves the most annoying character going - and that'll be Sarah Connor.

Imagine an incompetent female Jack Bauer, with even less of a sense of humour. You know those Facebook adverts about the signs of a stroke? Frozen face, drooping eyes, incoherent mumbling? Dear Lena Headey, how would we tell?

As she shuffles grimly from one disaster to the next, killing nice people and blowing up pretty things, you realise that she's the real Terminator. So awful is she that there's even an episode where she's in hospital, and the patient in the next bed sets fire to herself rather than spend another minute with Sarah Connor.

Maintaining a shred of dignity is lovely Summer Glau. Her contract now clearly states "No more fights or smashy smashy - Ms Glau will just look aloof". She's got her eyes on what she'll be doing after Sharah Chonner Conicles. If not rom coms, then maybe a shop window dummy.



She even emerged intact from the episode where her brain fritzed and she worked Hollywood Boulevard as a hooker. Her standard expression to her co-stars is clear: "How can you speak this drivel?"

Poor Thomas Dekker manages it. It's unfortunate that he's got a gay face. They play with the hair, they add the odd scar, but the older he gets, the more he looks like a minty flyer-boy for Heaven. Seriously, would you entrust the future of humanity to one of them? Or even some used chewing gum?

His episode 19 twist of "ha! ha! I knew the plan all along! And I can hold a gun! Facebook me, bitches! lols" falls flat. He bases his revelation on pointing out goofs and errors from previous episodes - which, believe me, isn't a game you want to start playing with Sarah Connor. Answer me this, John Connor - whatever happened to the elaborate mobile phone code? The time paradoxes? The grafitti in Series One? What's that? Free glowsticks and 2for1 on alcopops? Okay then, I'll consider it.

So why am I still watching this drivel? Okay. Two reasons.

Reason 1: The honest hope that at any minute Lene Headey will get a fit of the giggles, turn to the camera and ask "Please, do you have any idea what's going on?"

Reason 2: The Mansonator. God bless you Shirley Manson. Dropped in like scenes from another, better show, you've stolen the series and my heart.



If, in early episodes, it looked like she wasn't acting, then she's underpassed that by miles. Even in the middle of a killing spree, she looks barely awake. She's perfected the appearance of wearing sunglasses without actually ever having to.

The Mansonator is far and away the best thing on television. It's hard to pick a favourite moment or lack of expression. "Sit on my lap" might be a winner. Or even the reaction when her missing daughter is found and she looks quietly disappointed that she's not somehow turned into a Gucci handbag.

She's got all the toys, and she knows it. She's even got a recovering Terminator in the basement who loves Lego! Watching her daughter play Bionicle with him ("Can my duckies play too?"), you know you're onto a winner, and your heart sinks whenever the action cuts back to Sarah Connor, holding a gun and some luggage.

Please don't kill off the Mansonator! And please don't cancel the show. Or, if you have to, please start a spinoff where Shirley Manson and Summer Glau open a cupcake emporium. Go on. Just imagine either of them saying "Would you like extra sprinkles with that?" See? Best. Idea. Ever.

Being Jordan

Gemma made me watch Piers Morgan meets Katie Price. Which was a bit like Godzilla vs The Flying Lizard if Godzilla ducked awkward questions and Katie Price could fly.

It was extraordinary. Price's body language was priceless. Asked if she's still with Peter Andre she looked down and said "Yes" (lie!) followed by scratching her nose (lie!) and repeating "Yes." Cut to Peter Andre (shall we call him "poor Peter Andre"?) looking like Mr Preying Mantis shortly after the Mrs reveals she's peckish.

Jordan came across as hard as nails. Even when trying to be relaxed and candid, off-the-cuff and cheeky, she was like nothing so much as The Mansonator. At any moment she could have sliced Piers Morgan's head off. And it would still have asked her easy questions.

There were two Awful Moments. The first was when Jordan spontaneously revealed her child abuse. Or rather mentioned that she didn't want to talk about her abuse and then waved her hands in front of her tear ducts. "No tears! No tears!" shrieked Gemma. It was just enough to give the Red Tops their "I Was Abused!" strapline, but without actually any details, or, er, any suggestion that she really had been abused. It looked phoney. I'll stand corrected when her pederastic maths master is sent down for 40 years, but it looked like an orchestrated clutch for the "My Trauma" cover of Chat.

Morgan let it go - despite him vowing to ask hard questions and her promising not to duck anything. He even said "let's not go into it". It looked like a rehearsed stunt - surely, if it was real trauma stripped bare, her mum and husband would have rushed on stage to stop the recording.

The second awful moment was when Jordan revealed her seduction of Peter Andre. She'd turned up at his hotel room. "He was expecting Naughties," she said. At which point we all slid off the sofa and into the foetal position, "And he got Naughties."

The camera cut to poor Peter Andre, busily proving that you can't blush through fake tan.

And then Jordan said, in a moment to rival her "Christ, you must have a bucket!" zinger on the Graeme Norton show, "Well, I blew him in the toilet." Class.

Puzzlingly her hair was scraped back for battle. Or as though she was going for the St Jade Skull Cap feel.

This was actually harder viewing than the opening episode of Red Riding - where bad things happened to a skinny youth mostly cos it was
a) The 1970s
b) The North
c) He couldn't act.

Telly update

Sarah Connor is addictively awful, isn't it? Especially the episode where they send Sarah Connor to a hospital cos she's a grumpy humourless bitch and her roommate sets fire to herself rather than spend another night with the cow.

Battlestar clearly continues to be Best Thing Ever - apart from the Token Annual Rubbish Starbuck Episode - which actually was better than most of the others - if only for Tigh's Oh!My!God! eye acting when Starbuck plays the piano.

I've run out of episodes of Doomwatch to piss myself laughing to while chainsmoking and calling women "bird".

Chuck is displacing Middelman as my new favourite thing. I cannot tell you why, as it's exactly the same episode every week, and yet it's brilliant.

The only thing I've been watching on ye actual British telly is Being Human which was constantly amazing.

I am also watching a french film called "Nuits Rouge" about masked adventurers and the Knights Templar. It opens with the line "These thefts of men's brains - terrible, are they not?". It is addictive, but I am rationing it.